Reimagining the Mall

Mississauga is growing and our communities are evolving. To ensure the healthy development of our City, we are creating policies to direct potential redevelopment and intensification at strategic areas. The Reimagining the Mall project will guide the long-term evolution of five* (5) areas anchored by the following indoor shopping malls:

The study will help to ensure that future intensification in these areas is done in a way that fosters healthy, mixed-use communities. The idea being that you can live, work, play and raise a family all within your own “complete community". The purpose of the project is to make sure that land use policy is proactively in place should a landowner choose to redevelop in the future.

Reimagining the Mall is being led by the City of Mississauga in partnership with the Region of Peel. A consultant team led by Gladki Planning Associates, and supported by DTAH and urbanMetrics, is providing specialized expertise in land use planning, policy development, urban design, and finance.

HAVE YOUR SAY

Have suggestions about how we can reimagine our malls and the areas around them? We want to hear from you! Each phase of the engagement process will have a variety of ways to participate. Check back often to learn about the ways you can get involved online and in-person.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Mississauga is growing and our communities are evolving. To ensure the healthy development of our City, we are creating policies to direct potential redevelopment and intensification at strategic areas. The Reimagining the Mall project will guide the long-term evolution of five* (5) areas anchored by the following indoor shopping malls:

The study will help to ensure that future intensification in these areas is done in a way that fosters healthy, mixed-use communities. The idea being that you can live, work, play and raise a family all within your own “complete community". The purpose of the project is to make sure that land use policy is proactively in place should a landowner choose to redevelop in the future.

Reimagining the Mall is being led by the City of Mississauga in partnership with the Region of Peel. A consultant team led by Gladki Planning Associates, and supported by DTAH and urbanMetrics, is providing specialized expertise in land use planning, policy development, urban design, and finance.

HAVE YOUR SAY

Have suggestions about how we can reimagine our malls and the areas around them? We want to hear from you! Each phase of the engagement process will have a variety of ways to participate. Check back often to learn about the ways you can get involved online and in-person.

Here are my suggestions on some of the mall sites/nodes being considered in this study:

Meadowvale Town Centre: - Wider sidewalks implemented by reduced parking and further street setback. Incorporate plantings and benches. - Implement shortcut pedestrian walkway between Dollar Store and former Turtle Jacks by eliminating E-W road and replacing it with wide pedestrian walkway.- Replace former Library space with Transit Terminal Facility, including coffee shop and public washrooms.- Improve overall Transit Terminal space. Add playground or secondary place of worship in vacant land between Professional Centre and Church.- Long term: add 2-3 story office space above existing buildings in southern/newer part of outdoor mall.

Erin Mills Town Centre:- The renovations are really good. However, the stores are still lacking and I would rather go to Square One or Heartland than Erin Mills. Ideally, it should offer a mix of stores not in the general area and the popular staples. Here is a proposed list: Hollister, Superdry, Cheesecake Factory, Lush, Apple, Samsung, Uniqlo, Sephora, Diesel.- Hotel, Convention Centre, and Office Complex in southeast corner of property, with connection to Hospital, as alluded to already.- Add a movie theatre or gym in northwest corner of the mall building as mentioned previously; an extension attached to where the old movie theatre used to be, but with separate outdoor entrance.- Unfortunately, I believe the Winston Churchill and Erin Mills Transitway stations greatly reduced the potential of EMTC serving as a transit node. There should be wider sidewalks and bike paths along Winston Churchill, Erin Mills, and Eglinton leading to these stations.- Add lighted cricket pitch with stands in vacant land west of Loblaws- Condos planned for NE corner Erin Mills and Eglinton should be in 8-12 story range. I think current plan is too dense. Another option is to improve the architectural design of the development; something like River City in Toronto could work here if developer insists on 20 story range condos.

South Common Centre:- The remaining indoor mall portion in the centre should be replaced by an open air mall, with a wide pedestrian walkway in the centre going from east to west, and stores with 5-10 story mixed-use (residential, loft, office) above them on each side. This would act like a main street.

I understand that these six indoor malls are important places identifies for notable intensification but I wonder why some of the smaller indoor malls have not been considered.

Westdale Mall, for example, is an "L" shaped indoor mall with two outdoor stores at the opposite corner of the overlarge parking lot.

With a long frontage along Dundas St. and on Erindale Station Road, there is a room for low rise live/work spaces or additional commercial space that truly meets the street.

Westdale is already a transit hub (with the 101 & 101 Express buses, 1 & 1C & 38 local corridor buses, and 4 & 6 local connector buses) and has a good number of midrise buildings and townhouse complexes within walking distance.

With the proposal to add Bus Rapid Transit and the Dundas Connects plan, this would be a good opportunity to transform what is identified as an important node along a major street corridor.

The idea that you can work, live and play is an outdated expression from Richard Florida's early work which is frequently questioned by many urban political scientists. Unless the City is going to invest billions that they do not have, or take over the jurisdiction for issues they do not control the idea of redeveloping Sheridan Mall and the surrounding area into this model is at best far reaching.

Maybe a better place to start is to identify the types of activities that should or could be incorporated into a redesigned or more likely a redeveloped mall. Given that the private property owner has the most influence of outcomes we should first assume that any mall redevelopment will have to incorporate residential, most likely condo development to satisfy the developer's economic motives and the provincial mandate for intensification. Given these factors:

1. What is the potential population addition to this area and how does this affect traffic, trsnsportation and education support needs?2. What needs to be incorporated to make this mall/area have much more appeal to residents and visitors?3. Is the City prepared to provide resources both manpower and reallocate grant funds to develop more arts and cultural activities so that local residents are not forced to attend events that currently are only focused on Port Credit or Celebration Square?4. Without any understanding of local demographics there needs to be a recognition that any mall redesign should allow for year round open spaces for all age groups to enjoy. The overall design should be walker friendly; cluster like minded activities; and incorporate many agency groups: medical, licensing,libraries, dental, education. 5. Why not move some of the City staff currently housed at City Hall to this area to increase mall utilization and bring more focus to this area? 6. Where possible and affordable provide underground or overground walkways to link different areas including the other side of Erin Mills.7. Incorporate hotels into this space with immediate access to the mall. This again helps to support higher quality restaurants and services. Ditto the theatre idea.8. Build into any redesign space for exhibits, performing arts, kids programs.9. Overall, the main theme should be to create a new "village" or hub that offers all residents more amenities without full gentrification.

Bring movie theaters back to local malls like Erin Mills Town Center, but with access on the outside of the mall. Walking indoors is a nice option on rainy days and in the winter, but increasingly becoming important in the summer with really hot days. I would like to have more options to either walk inside or outside depending on the weather. So access both inside and outside the mall.

Not related to subject at hand. Just wondering if there is a plan to install a traffic light at Ninth Line and Terragar. Traffic has built up, finding it scary to turn left from Terragar to Ninth Line. Also hope that earlier project to widen ninth line be funded and implemented. This will be a great benefit to your friends here. Thanks.

As a parent of young children it is cumbersome and time consuming to constantly take your children in and out of a car seats just to be able to visit more than one store. For example at Heart Land Town Centre ( I realize this location is not a focus of this study but I mention it as it's closest to my home) children clothing stores are very far apart from each other requiring to either load and unload kids in car seats then drive to each store creating more traffic or try to walk with small children in a non-pedestrian friendly area (forget about this when the weather is bad). Additionally places like this are washroom limited and have no nursing facilities. For the reasons I just mentioned and a few more I would drive out of my way to shop at Erin Mills Town Centre. And I did this even while the mall was under heavy construction as it was still more convenient to park, eat and shop. Additionally the size of the mall is manageable to be effective with my time. In addition I saw someone’s question about the conditions of Rockwood Mall I would like to remark that though the Food Court is a bit out of date it is clearly a well-used and enjoyed by the members of its community. I often see a large number of “regulars” meeting for coffee or lunch. It’s clearly not only a mall but a place to meet and socialize.

Recent News

*Jan 29, 2018 --- Study Area Updates

The Westwood Square mall and surrounding area will now be addressed through the Malton Land Use Planning Review. Please contact Shahada Khan for more information.

In addition to the study area for the Reimagining the Mall
project, the City will also be conducting a planning exercise for the larger
Meadowvale community. This review will
address development pressures in the community’s stable residential neighbourhood. More information to follow.